


broken fingertips on your hips

by postcardmystery



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Murder, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet Freddie Lyon. He’s a traitor. He’s a journalist. He’s never going to be sorry, because if he’s sorry it was all for nothing.</p><p>An AU where Freddie was the brightstone all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken fingertips on your hips

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for murder and suicide.

He’s not going to justify himself to you. He’s not. He’s not. He’s  _not_. It’s too late now, anyway. It was always going to be too late. That’s the story. That’s the truth.  
  
  
  
  
“Thank you, Moneypenny,” he says, and Bel scowls, says, “You’re not really Bond, you know.”  
  
He smiles, only a little sad, says, “Yes, I had noticed.”  
  
  
  
  
Meet Freddie Lyon. He’s a traitor. He’s a journalist. He’s never going to be sorry, because if he’s sorry it was all for nothing.  
  
Meet Freddie Lyon, the most dangerous soviet agent in Britain. He doesn’t look like much, but appearances aren’t everything, and doesn’t he know that better than most? Isn’t that, in fact, the entire bloody _point_?  
  
Meet Freddie Lyon. He doesn’t look like much, but he can kill you with his bare hands and not feel even the slightest bit sorry. It’s his story, and he’s not going to feel sorry. He’s writing this with ink-stained, blood-stained, love-stained hands, and he knows exactly what he is, even if you don’t, even if he’s never going to tell you, because it’s his story and that truth, right now, is the only thing he’s selling that’s true.  
  
  
  
  
  
“You have to help me,” says Ruth Elms, and Freddie tightens his fingers on his pen, pushes down the fluttering in his stomach that tells him to drag her into the toilets and jam the nib of it right into her neck.  
  
“I’m not the right person for this,” he says, which isn’t a lie, but she doesn’t know quite how much of a lie it  _isn’t_.  
  
“There’s only  _you_ ,” says Ruth, her voice breaking with panic, and Freddie takes a deep breath, instinctively knows the right thing to say.  
  
“You need to call the police,” he says, earnest and gripping her hand in his, “I don’t know how to help you.”  
  
He sees her crumple, watches her eyes fill with tears and feels her hand starts to shake, and he knows.  _Bullseye_.  
  
  
  
  
Once, there was a mission, and a skinny boy in a skinny tie who could lie better than anyone you’ve ever met. Once there was a mission, and a handler, and postcards from an aunt that never existed at all. Once, everyone he knew called him  _the Bolshevik_ , and he smiled, alone in the dark, chain-smoking and resting his lying tongue, and only he knew the irony writ there. Once, there was the mission, and nothing else.  
  
There’s more to Freddie Lyon than the mission, but, of course, that’s the thing. There’s not.  
  
  
  
  
“They killed him,” says Freddie, hands flat on Bel’s desk and that light that he’s known how to use since day one burning, whitehot, in his eyes, “Her, too. And now they’re after me. Oh, God, Bel, they’re going to find me floating in the Thames.”  
  
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” says Bel, soothingly, and Freddie laughs, high and mad, says, “I know that. Shit, of  _course_  I know that.”  
  
“You have to drop this, Freddie,” says Bel, and Freddie smiles, wets his lips, says, “Oh, if only I could.”  
  
  
  
  
People are easy; words are weapons; don’t use a gun if your bare hands will do. These are the only rules of Freddie Lyon’s life, no matter what appearances tell you, no matter what you think you know. He’s thin and he’s frail and he’s a talker, not a fighter, but you can cultivate anything, if you try hard enough. No one tries harder than Freddie Lyon. No one has as much to lose.  
  
  
  
  
“I know what you are,” says Thomas Kish, and Freddie exhales a long stream of smoke, says, “Dramatic. It’s a bit more difficult than that to impress me, Mr Kish.”  
  
“You’re the agent in the BBC.  _Apollo_. Thought you were a myth,” says Kish, and Freddie grins at him, says, “The god of truth and lies. Well, if we’re putting all our cards on the table. What are we going to do now?”  
  
“You’re a loose end,” says Kish, and Freddie smirks at him, stubs his cigarette out, and slams Kish’s head into the table so hard that Freddie can feel it in his own teeth.  
  
“Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” says Freddie, twisting Kish’s tie into a garotte, “I rather feel like taking the  _stairs_.”  
  
  
  
  
Peter Darrall wasn’t the best handler, but Freddie wasn’t exactly an asset. Gap in his backstory, not too big and easily plugged, he’d have to fake being monolingual forever but no one’s caught him yet, no one expects a boy with the wrong accent to speak Russian so flawlessly he could pass for a Muscovite. No one expected a lot of things, most of all Peter Darrall.  
  
He doesn’t miss him. He isn’t angry he’s dead. This isn’t about revenge. Quite the opposite.  
  
Freddie Lyon is the sole remaining brightstone on British soil, and this was never about revenge. This is about  _survival_.  
  
  
  
  
“You’re such an enigma,” says Hector, in a big, empty country house, the epitome of everything Freddie’s ever hated, “From London but you clean a gun like you’ve done it before.”  
  
Freddie grins at him, sharp and vicious, leaves with a shotgun hanging over his shoulder, does not tell Hector that he could outshoot him a hundred times over. Does not tell Hector that when he says  _I missed as many as I could_  that faking being a bad shot was almost as hard as faking surprise when Bel caught him naked in the bath. Does not tell Hector the most glaring omission of all:  _I’ve never needed a gun_.  
  
  
  
  
He knows exactly what he’s doing. If he’s honest, he loves them both, but he knows ephemeral when he sees it. He’ll take what he can because the time is coming where he’ll get nothing at all. He’s never going to be the one to throw himself on Her Majesty’s kindness. He’s going to fuck them and love them and forget them as best he can, because they’ll die if he doesn’t, because  _he’ll_  die if he doesn’t.  
  
  
  
  
“You really didn’t know what Adam Le Ray is?” says Hector, surprise spreading across his face like a sunset, and Freddie keeps his expression innocent, says, “Of course not.”  
  
  
  
  
He dances with Bel because he wants to, because his time is running out and no one knows it better than him. He relinquishes her hand to Hector because he’ll get them both, for that sand is trickling out, too. He goes home with Lix because she’s beautiful and she’s cleverer than him and just because he doesn’t want to get caught doesn’t mean he doesn’t shiver with the thrill every time it almost happens. He doesn’t want to get caught, but the thought that he might makes him hard, every single time. He doesn’t want to get caught, but he knows he’s fucked, so it might as well be the good kind, while that’s still on the table, the desk, Lix’s floor.  
  
  
  
  
“You talk in your sleep, you know,” says Lix, the next morning, and Freddie looks up from kissing her shoulder, says, carefully, “Really?”  
  
“Some nonsense about Greek gods,” says Lix, smiling at him indulgently, “Stop reading Robert Graves before bed.”  
  
“I’ll bear that in mind,” says Freddie, wryly, and kisses her one last time, for good measure.  
  
  
  
  
He pretended to be shy with Lix, but he really is shy with Bel. His hands shake when he reaches for Hector’s belt, and he laughs nervously when Hector’s large, warm hands strip him of his undershirt. They both kiss him like it’s the end of the world, and he lets them. He knows that it is. He would be sorry, but he loves them, and he thinks he forgot how to be sorry five years ago, snow in his hair and a knife in his belt and Russian on his lips. He would be sorry, but he watches Hector lift Bel’s hair from her neck to suck kisses there, and simply does not know how.  
  
  
  
  
“I know what you are,” he says, just to watch all the colour drain from Angus McCain’s face.  
  
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” McCain says, and Freddie takes a sip of his martini, says, “Don’t be shy, Angus, you’re in good company.”  
  
There’s nothing they won’t slander with him once the truth comes out, anyway.  
  
  
  
  
Getting to Lord Elms is easy, for all he makes a pantomime of it being hard. They’re following him at every turn, Her Majesty’s Secret Service on the trail of a journalist who just doesn’t know when to give up, and he knows how to play that role, he’s been playing it to rave reviews for years. Getting to Lord Elms is easy, and he plays his ace in the hole, watches the man's resolve crumble, knows, it itching under his skin, that he’s got a week to live at most.  
  
He’s cleverer than you. A whole life predicated on this. There are worse things to be, aren’t there? Aren’t there?  
  
  
  
  
“You seem very over-invested in this Hungary business,” says Hector, kind and fond and Freddie knows his heart should already be breaking, knowing how he’s going to ruin Hector Madden like he was nothing at all, but Bel breaks in, says, “Meet Freddie. Over-invested in everything, ever since day one.”  
  
“Bugger off,” says Freddie, takes another drink from Hector, lights Bel’s cigarette, and continues being selfish, because he doesn’t know how not to, because he doesn’t know how not to care.  
  
  
  
  
He bottles it. That’s the party line, that’s the story he’s sticking to. He pulls out every ounce of oratory he’s ever coralled to his command, preaches hellfire and damnation and if being caught was a thrill that it’s nothing at all like this, the sick spark of his lovers’s eyes on him and the whole nation watching, fooled like they always are, always have been. He bottles it, and he wastes a second wishing he had time for a fuck, one last time.  
  
  
  
  
“You thought I was your brightstone,” says Freddie, and Clarence’s face goes white.  
  
“It’s you,” says Clarence, stepping back, almost on instinct, “You went  _rogue_. You were the target all along.”  
  
“I was supposed to bottle it, idiot. Хорошая попытка,” says Freddie,  _nice try_ , and pulls the trigger.  
  
He turns to face Bel and Hector as they throw the door open, blood flecked across the bridge of his nose and a dead agent’s trenchcoat at his feet, not even a fortnight ago stolen off a body still-warm.  
  
“Don’t look,” says Freddie, and when he puts the muzzle to his temple, it’s hot.


End file.
